


For Better (She's Definitely Better)

by Serenity_V



Series: An Acquired Taste [4]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: 2 Keens are better than 1, Angst, BAMF Jacob, F/M, Fluff, Snarky Jacob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6503359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenity_V/pseuds/Serenity_V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prospective clients don’t usually try to hire Jacob via abduction, but hey, he supposes there’s a first time for everything. Prospective clients also never question his ability to do his job, he reflects afterwards, because he doesn’t get attached. He doesn’t feel things like sympathy or remorse. Definitely not love. So what is it that he feels whenever he so much as thinks of Elizabeth Scott?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Better (She's Definitely Better)

This kept happening.

For the record, Jacob thought as he came to, they never could have taken him if he’d been armed. Unfortunately, Tom Keen didn’t carry a gun; it would have been really hard to justify, considering he didn’t even know how to use one.

_Note to self: Stop blundering into isolated alleyways while undercover as a helpless civie._

He sighed, irritated, as he looked around, finding himself in some sort of decrepit warehouse.

_“Well,_ at least they were original,” he muttered, “Not.”

Whoever had taken him had seemed mostly competent up to that point, but they’d made a serious mistake. Jacob had been propped against a wall, unrestrained except for his hands, bound in front of him. He was also relatively unharmed, a slight bump on his head where he’d been knocked out, but not even a concussion to show for it. Nothing that could slow him down.

“You’re awake,” a man emerged from the shadows, coming to stand before him like the villain in some cheesy crime drama. Jacob noticed two other men hovering at the fringes of the room.

“Sorry about all this, but we needed to speak with you privately, and our employer wasn’t sure how amenable you’d be before hearing his offer in full.”

“What kind of offer we talking about here?”

“It concerns Elizabeth Scott.”

It had been almost two years since Jacob had met Lizzie. _Met,_ he snorted, _As if we “met” like normal people._ So far, no threat against her had reached truly worrying proportions, but it seemed that might be about to change. Slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements, Jacob stood.

“What about her?”

“My employer doesn’t know what Reddington’s interest in her is, but he knows it exists. He’s preparing for war, and he’ll use any advantage he can find. We need someone in Scott’s life, someone to monitor her and her relationship with Reddington. Due to your…position, you seem uniquely suited to the job.” Exactly how much did these people know?

“What do you mean, my ‘position’?”

“We know Reddington hired you to infiltrate her life.” _Well,_ Jacob thought, _you could say that. Of course, you’d be mostly wrong…_ “And, we know you’ve gotten quite close to her.”

The operative nodded, considering the information he’d been given before responding, “Can I ask who this guy is who wants to hire me?”

“For obvious reasons, he’s hesitant to reveal himself until you’ve accepted his offer.”

Jacob nodded again. It was the answer he’d expected. He took a deep breath, readying himself. The men holding him would have been ordered not to shoot to kill. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t if they felt they were out of options, but it would buy him a few seconds. That was all he needed.

Abruptly, he stepped forward and kneed the closest man in the gut, leaving him doubled over and gasping for breath as Jacob snatched the gun from his waistband and put a bullet between the eyes of the guy at one end of the room. The man at the other end had just time enough to pull out his own weapon and get a shot off, but it went wild as Jacob turned and sent him to the same end as his fellow. By that time, the first man had recovered, but Jacob quickly put another step of distance between them, training the gun on him.

“Turn around,” he ordered. After watching him warily for a moment, the man complied.

“Tell your boss I don’t make a habit of working for people who think the best way to get in touch with me is to _abduct_ me. And, if he seriously wants me to turn on Raymond _freaking_ Reddington, he should talk to my handler.” With that, Jacob stepped forward and pistol-whipped the merc before he could respond, leaving him in an unconscious heap on the floor and dropping the gun beside him.

Checking his watch as he left the warehouse, he saw that it was nearly five p.m. Lizzie was supposed to come over for dinner at six. He supposed he could cancel, but he had time, right? Never let it be said that Jacob Phelps was one to turn down a challenge. Besides, she needed this; she’d been hunting a serial killer for the past month, and the case had gone all but cold. She was good at her job, but the rare occasions on which she hit a wall weighed heavily on her. And, her presence would hardly be a hardship. In fact, it may be just what he needed to settle his nerves after that fiasco.

* * *

Jacob had made it to his apartment and gotten cleaned up in record time. He’d managed to hide all sign of his little misadventure save the lump on his head, but that would be easy enough to explain away. He sighed, trying not to worry too much about what had happened. He’d bought some time by referring his prospective client to Bud, but he knew the situation was far from dealt with. A part of him worried Bud would actually give him the go-ahead to turn on Reddington, and what would he do then? He couldn’t hurt Lizzie. Well, theoretically he _could,_ though that was by no means certain; the woman was far from helpless. The point was, he _wouldn’t._

He wondered when that had happened, but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it had. And, he was really glad that it had. As Jacob Phelps stood in his kitchen, cutting up _vegetables_ instead of people and waiting for his _Fed_ girlfriend to arrive, it hit him. He was _happy._ Actually, genuinely, happy.

Had he ever been happy before? Not satisfied after a job well done or a night of vice, but this feeling of pure joy and innocent contentment. That warmth that came when he thought of Lizzie’s bright smile or sharp wit or hopeful eyes.

Was that what love was? Jacob had never wasted much thought on “love.” He’d never wanted it. He’d never even thought he was capable of feeling it; it was his detachment, after all, that made him so good at his job.

_Is this it?_ he wondered. He thought of Lizzie, of how he was one of the two people alive allowed to call her that, and of how “Scott” or even “Elizabeth” sounded so _wrong_ anymore. He thought of the walking bundle of contradictions he’d come to find so intoxicating. She was cold and hard one moment, soft and warm the next. When pushed, she could terrify grown men with just her demeanor, but that same presence was the steady one that soothed his nerves without any apparent effort.

Before Liz, Jacob had thought he’d seen everything, and maybe he had, but he’d never seen it all together. She was nothing like he’d ever known before; maybe it made sense that he’d responded by feeling what he’d never thought he could.

Liz knocked on his door, and he called for her to let herself in.

“Hey,” she greeted, wrapping her arms around him from behind. “Smells good.”

“Thanks,” he relaxed into the embrace, and when had that stopped being a conscious decision? “Almost done. How was your day?”

“Worse than yours.”

_Oh, if only you knew,_ Jacob laughed.

“Tom” only looked confused, and mildly concerned, turning to face her as he asked, “What makes you say that?” The question startled a laugh out of her, but not the carefree one he so loved.

“Well, I _hope_ your day wasn’t as bad as mine! If it was, my world view’s going to suck a lot more than it already does.”

Jacob grimaced, “That bad?”

“We’re officially switching our focus off this case. Apparently, our time and energy will be better spent elsewhere while he’s still out there somewhere, killing people. It just-”

“Hey. Lizzie, hey, look at me.” He gently took her chin in his hand and tilted her head so that she met his eyes. “You are _good_ at what you do. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but everything’s going to be okay. So, maybe it’ll take this guy a little longer to make a mistake, but it’ll happen, and when it does, you’ll be there. And, in the meantime, you’ll do a lot of good working on other cases.”

She managed a small but genuine smile. “Thanks.”

She still seemed a little tense, so he tried to distract her with a kiss. She smiled up at him when they parted until her eyes widened as she noticed-

“Babe, what happened to your head?”

“Oh,” Jacob grinned, deciding to kill two birds with one stone, “Now it’s _my_ turn to tell horror stories about work. You ready for this, Lizzie?”

“I don’t know,” she teased, “What did you do?”

“What makes you think it was my fault? So, I step outside the classroom for – I kid you not – less than a _minute_ to talk to one of the other teachers about this math worksheet, and when I get back in, I find that in the _seconds_ I was gone, the kids decided it was Prank Day and turned all their desks around to face the back of the room, and I’m so busy trying to get them all to fix it, I don’t notice little Jenny had stowed away her cat in her backpack and decided to let it loose while I was out until I take a step, and there it is! And, when I tripped over it, I hit my head on my desk on the way down.” Jacob was feeling rather proud of the sheer ridiculousness of the story as Lizzie burst into laughter – the warm, free laughter he’d wanted to hear.

“There is _no way_ that happened!”

“Tom” tried to look offended, “You don’t believe me?”

Liz responded with a knowing smirk, “You tripped over your own two feet, didn’t you?”

He mock-grimaced, “How’d you know?”

“You’re a terrible liar, Babe.”

If only she knew…All told, he was glad she didn’t. She’d never look at him the same way again if she knew what he was capable of. What he’d done.

“Yeah, well…Made you laugh, didn’t I?” he smiled.

“Yeah,” she grinned, earlier tension nowhere to be seen, and surprised him with a kiss. “I needed that.”

“What?”

_“You,”_ she said simply, eyes sparkling with sincerity.

Lizzie’s masks were almost as good as his own, but Jacob knew that wasn’t what it was when she smiled up at him like all was right with the world. She’d seen the evil out there, maybe not as much as he, but enough, yet she was still so bright and hopeful. She had taught him, for the first time, that there really was a difference between innocence and naivety. There was darkness in her world, and she knew it – She stared it in the face every day! – But, she didn’t let it drive out the light. Maybe he could learn to do the same.

Before he’d met Lizzie, all Jacob had known had been the darkness. She was the light that drove it back. She held a darkness of her own inside, he knew, but somehow it only served to make her shine all the brighter. If that was love…Well, Jacob had never known what he’d been missing, but now that he did, he didn’t think he could return to an existence without it.

The next day, he started looking at engagement rings.


End file.
